


would it be enough if I could never give you peace

by rachelamberish



Series: folklore [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Explicit Sexual Content, Fix-It, M/M, Mutual Pining, Top Richie Tozier, domesticityyyy, every fic in this series can and should be read on its own, i am feeling...an emotion, i continue to go feral post-folklore, i quote kerouac because we are all sad and alone and searching for meaning in our lives, i wrote this to feel something again because all of my fics are angst, inappropriate use of kitchen surfaces, peace.mp3, richie tozier still has a big dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:06:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25773310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelamberish/pseuds/rachelamberish
Summary: (our coming of age has come and gone; suddenly this summer it's clear.)Eddie looks down at the mug he's holding, and blinks."Why does this mug say,‘She thinks my tractor’s sexy’?”Richie, face stretched in every possible way—mouth agape and eyes threatening to pop out of his skull—can’t comprehend the question.“Dude, why are you in myhouse?”“Oh. Your cleaning lady let me in before she left. She seems nice.” Eddie takes a careful sip of his coffee.“What the shit?” Richie breathes.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: folklore [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855267
Comments: 31
Kudos: 335





	would it be enough if I could never give you peace

**Author's Note:**

> i swear to god this was 100% a comedy with zero angst whatsoever before i started quoting kerouac and then it all went downhill from there. i have nothing to say for myself. anyway here's 16k of people searching for meaning in their lives
> 
> every fic in this series is meant to be read on its own. they do not tie in to each other.

Richie answers the blare of the alarm clock with a loud and mocking _“BWAAAAH!”_ of his own.

Sunrise in the middle of an L.A. summer crested bright and orange through the glass windows of Richie’s home at six-shitting-a.m. The Richie of yesteryear didn’t even know that they _had_ a six in the morning. But his therapist was on him about _routines,_ now. _(“Try getting up with the sun, Richie. It’s a beautiful thing. It can invigorate you; fill you with that desire to seize the day for what it has to offer.”)_

Richie’s palm comes up in a wide rotation over his head and smacks flat on the alarm clock, and silences it.

He grumbles, _“Carpe fuckin’ diem”_ into his drool-crusted pillow.

He’s padding barefoot into his kitchen, stretching one arm elbow bent above his head and with the other, idly scratching at the space where his Beastie Boys t-shirt rode up on his belly. His eyes are squinted mostly shut and where he can see out of them is pretty much just light, and the vague colors and shapes that make up his house—not only from the crust still in his eyes but also because he’s blinder than Hellen fucking Keller and still holds his glasses in his hand.

Richie cleans off the lenses with the fabric at the hem of his shirt and, faced with the Mr. Coffee on his marble countertop, reaches out with his other hand to slap the brew button.

It doesn’t go.

Frowning, he slaps it again, and again, and then shoves his glasses on his face so he can fuckin’ see.

The water’s all gone, and there’s fresh coffee in the coffee pot.

He blinks twice.

There’s a small, quiet little cough behind him that sends him spinning and near-collapsing back into the coffee machine with his heart in his throat.

“Hey, Richie.”

Eddie looks wide-eyed at him from the kitchen table, mug of hot coffee clutched between two hands. Back straight as an arrow, clothes neat, and wearing an easy, vaguely shy smile.

Then he looks down at the mug he’s holding, and blinks.

“Why does this mug say, _‘She thinks my tractor’s sexy’?”_

Richie, face stretched in every possible way—mouth agape and eyes threatening to pop out of his skull—can’t comprehend the question.

“Dude, why are you in my _house?”_

“Oh. Your cleaning lady let me in before she left. She seems nice.” Eddie takes a careful sip of his coffee.

“What the shit?” Richie breathes.

“I’m, uh…” Eddie clears his throat, “sorry if this is a bad time.”

“It’s…” and Richie stops. He can’t say _it is._ It’s not true. Not really. Six a.m. was a bad time just, like, in general, but Eddie superseded that. Eddie superseded everything. On Richie’s own dumb, gay hierarchy of needs, he had “Eddie Kaspbrak” scrawled in at the top of the pyramid—where “self-actualization” should be.

“It’s, uh…” he starts again, reaching now into the cupboard to grab a mug (not taking his eyes off of Eddie) and then filling it with coffee. “It’s not, dude, it’s just, uh…I guess I didn’t expect— _fuck—”_

He spills a few drops off coffee on his hand and hisses at the burn.

Eddie stands from his chair.

“Shit, are you okay?”

“Yeah— _fuck_ —no, fuckin’ sit down, I’m fine—”

“You should run that under cold water—”

“I know that.” (He didn’t.)

“Can I get you a—”

“No, Eddie, Jesus, I’m fine.” Richie curses under his breath with his thumb under the cold tap and Eddie gradually relaxes and sits back down. “It’s just really sudden, you know. I haven’t seen you in, uh, in a while. Or heard from you, really. Like, more than one-word answers over text. But it’s fine, you know. I’m actually partial to home invasions. No, I’m kidding. It’s fine. It’s not like I expected…you know, after Derry, you weren’t _obliged_ to, like, stay in—”

“I just left my wife.”

Richie freezes.

Eddie has crumpled. His voice is broken when he says it. Hands cradling his head, elbows braced on the table. He looks like he might be about to disintegrate, or fall through the floor.

“You—”

Richie can’t finish the thought.

Carefully, he grips his coffee mug on the counter and brings it with him around the island to the kitchen table. He rests with his elbows against the top of a dining chair.

Eddie doesn’t move, and can’t look at him.

“And is that…” Richie starts again. “Is that a…good…thing?” _(Can I be happy about this? Am I allowed to be happy about this?)_

Eddie runs his fingers through his hair again and again, nervously.

“I—maybe. I don’t…I don’t…” he lifts his head and swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I…I think so.”

Then, he finally manages to look at Richie.

“Yes,” he says, as a last, somewhat-confident verdict.

Richie nods, slowly.

“Okay.” He’d follow that up with a _“congrats”_ , but somehow it just really doesn’t feel appropriate.

Because that still doesn’t really answer anything. It’s certainly nice to hear. His memories of Myra from the hospital weren’t great, and every time she’d looked at him felt the way that the word _“queer”_ sounded, coming from the mouth of Henry Bowers or any of his unfortunately numerous relatives. And the fact that she looked like Eddie’s dead mom certainly didn’t help.

But Eddie’s sitting in his house. So that’s still weird.

Richie slides into a seat across from him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to…I feel like I’m intruding.”

“I mean, you literally are, but it’s fine.”

“I should leave.”

Eddie pushes out his seat and stands again.

“No,” Richie says louder than he should, “you should sit your ass down and finish your fucking coffee ‘cause that shit ain’t cheap, alright? Stuff’s imported from, like, Tanzania, or something.”

He takes a sip from his own mug as Eddie stares back at him, still looking unsure.

“And while you’re at it, tell me what the fuck you’re doing here, because you still haven’t really answered that question.”

Eddie slides, frowning, back into his chair.

“I love cock.”

Richie spits the coffee in his mouth back into the mug.

“I—I’m sorry?”

“Your mug.” Eddie points.

Sure enough, like a fucking idiot, he didn’t look at what he’d grabbed out of the cupboard. It’s one reading _“I”,_ followed by a heart, followed by a drawing of a rooster. Bev had thought it was funny when they’d passed by Spencer’s in the mall.

“Oh,” Richie coughs. “R-right. Uh. Gag gift. Secret Santa.”

Eddie’s eyes narrow slightly. “You know I know you’re gay, Richie. ‘Cause you told me.”

“We—well, right, yeah, I—”

“I don’t get why you do that. You, like, act like I still don’t know sometimes. Like you forget that you don’t have to lie about it anymore.”

“Force of habit,” Richie grumbles.

Eddie frowns, deeper. Richie thinks his face is probably just stuck like that after forty years. Maybe he came out of the womb with a frown and a fanny pack.

Eddie’s looking down at his hands again. Thinking.

“I get if this isn’t…okay. This is totally inappropriate, isn’t it? Yeah, you know what, I shouldn’t have…”

“Hey. _Hey._ Eds?” Richie says, stern, so Eddie will look at him. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I freaked out on you earlier. That wasn’t cool. You made me coffee. My mini-heart attack was before it really sunk in that it was you and you weren’t here to burgle me.”

“I just, um…” Eddie swallows, not really hopping on-board with the lighter tone Richie was trying to establish. “It’s just…I don’t have anywhere else to go, Richie.”

Richie’s eyes track to the suitcases by the couch.

Oh.

“Eds, I don’t mean to make it seem like you’re not welcome, but there’s like…hotels around, I mean…shit, there’s hotels in New York.”

Eddie looks upset. _Shit._ He said the wrong thing again. He said the wrong— _goddammit._

“No, I don’t mean to—I mean—oh, shit, is it…is it a hygiene thing? Sorry, I didn’t think about…”

Eddie looks away. Richie thinks the emotion he’s seeing is probably shame. He’d forgotten, honestly, what it looked like on Eddie.

“Or…is it…a money…thing?” He’d thought Eddie was pretty well-off, but he didn’t know the details of his and Myra’s marriage. Could be really shitty in a fuckload of different ways, if her glowing behavior at the hospital was any indicator.

“Do you…need money?” he asks tentatively. “I can give you—”

“It’s an ‘I don’t really want to be fucking alone right now’ thing, Richie.” Eddie stares back at him with a look that’s begging to be seen and understood.

“Is that why you’re in L.A.?” Richie asks him, trying.

Eddie sniffs; grips his coffee tighter and looks away.

“I fucking hate New York,” he spits.

Richie thinks he nods.

“Isn’t your work there, though? I—”

“I quit my job.”

Richie blows air out his mouth like a popped balloon.

“Shit, you just checked every box on the mid-life crisis chart in one fucking go, huh?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything.

“I mean, hey, that’s…efficient. If nothing else.”

“I don’t need you to give me money. Or…anything. I’ll do half the grocery shopping. I’ll clean. Which, by the way, Richie, Jesus Christ, you’re a grown fucking adult, you don’t need a cleaning lady—”

“It’s a big house!”

“I’ll even pitch in something for room and board if you want, I just…I’d really appreciate…this. Letting me stay, I mean. I don’t…I don’t know for how long, yet. I hope that’s okay.”

Richie’s nodding. He’s nodding all over the place.

Eddie smiles, shy again.

“I’ll, uh…make up the guest room.” Richie raps his fingers on the table as he stands. “Stay as long as you like.”

“Thanks, Rich,” is small.

_“You’re smoking outside a hospital?” Bev saunters up next to him, on a bridge overlooking the Derry river._

_Richie nods._

_“Tacky,” she remarks. “Like sex in a church.” Then she holds out her hand. “Gimme.”_

_Richie passes it over without complaint. Bev takes a slow drag as she leans against the metal bridge and sighs._

_Richie is staring out at the water and the way that it moves. He’s been staring too long, though, and he thinks he can see Eddie’s blood in the ripples._

_“You don’t have to be alone, Richie,” she tells him._

_“I know.”_

_“You_ shouldn’t _be alone,” Bev says again, because she knows it’s not sinking in._

_“She doesn’t want me in there,” he grumbles, hand ruffling at his hair and itching at his scalp._

_“Fuck her,” she says._

_Richie shakes his head._

_“Richie,” Bev’s calling out, leaning into him. “Richie, look at me?”_

_He’s pissed because he can’t look at her without his eyes being just completely clouded in tears._

_Whatever Bev was gonna say is lost when she sees his face. Now she just looks back with kind pity, brushing a strand of hair from his face with a nimble finger; cradling his cheek and jaw._

_“God, you really do love him bad, huh, Rich?”_

_Richie is too overwhelmed to deny it. And too tired._

_He nods, and slips into sobs as she wraps delicate hands around him and pulls him in to cry on her shoulder._

“All set?” Richie’s knocking at the doorframe to announce his presence, and then blinks and startles at the sight in front of him. The sight being a topless Eddie in pajama pants, facing away from him and unloading clothes from his suitcase onto the bed.

Eddie turns his head and smiles. “Uh, yeah. Thanks, Richie.”

But Richie’s eyes are following the line of the scar on his back.

Eddie notices the staring.

Something passes over his face that Richie doesn’t like so much. It’s a grimace, or…that shame again.

“That looks…” he swallows. Eddie waits. “Looks like it’s healed a lot.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, thick. “It has.”

“You feeling okay? I mean, was your recovery…you know—”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Richie,” Eddie says quickly.

“Oh,” Richie blinks. “O-okay.”

Eddie throws a shirt on. He does it almost angrily. Richie doesn’t understand why.

“Thanks for everything, Rich,” Eddie says, not looking at him and instead playing with the hem of his t-shirt.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“Goodnight.”

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight.”

_“Richie! Hey! Hey, there he is! Richie, I think I killed It! I think—I think I killed It! I—”_

_He’s gasping. Reaching out. But before he can even come back to the earth again, he hears it. The ripping of flesh, and the screams, and he feels the cold splash of blood all over his fucking body._

_He doesn’t have nightmares about anything else for the rest of his life._

It’s fucking different. Living with someone, that is. It’s…it’s a change. A good change, Richie thinks. There is a comfort in it, and he thinks he likes it. Thinks he could grow to like it a lot more. But it’s a change.

Richie spends most of his days at home now, writing. Eddie is an endless source of comedic inspiration.

Eddie hates L.A. Or at least, Richie thinks he does. He’s always bitching about the heat (As though he’s _surprised_ that L.A. is _hot_. Richie thinks this is fucking hilarious. _“I knew it was hot, asshole, I just don’t understand how you fucking live like this.”)._ He can never slather enough sunscreen on his body—he goes through a fucking bottle a week _(“Do you know the carbon footprint you’re leaving with all this plastic, Eds?” “Does the word_ ‘melanoma’ _mean anything to you, dipshit?”)._

Eddie announced that he is taking this time, while he settles his divorce from Myra at a healthy distance, to focus on “finding himself”. He’s job-searching (Not sure what he wants to do yet, but he’s exploring his options, and won’t say much more.). Trying out yoga and meditation. Reading books on psychology and self-help and _baking_. He bakes twice a fucking week now, which has got Richie in a bad way with the scale in his bathroom.

Why Eddie feels as though he is best suited to _“finding himself”_ while living with the out-of-shape, dryly witty, borderline washed-up comedian he was once childhood friends with is still a bit of a mystery to Richie, but he can hardly complain. Eddie’s a great fucking cook, he (obviously) cleans like a maniac, and sometimes Richie catches a glimpse of him after a workout, or just getting out of the shower, when minimal clothing is clinging to damp skin.

Well…right. There’s that.

Richie tried not to think about it. He figured the less of a deal he made in his head about living in close-proximity with the thirty-years-secretly pining, unrequited, recently divorced love of his life, the less of a risk he ran of Eddie somehow catching on.

But sometimes that got difficult.

“Am I fuckable?”

With his drinking glass to his lips—having learned from last time—Richie quickly pulls it away, so he doesn’t have the opportunity to spit the drink back into his glass.

“Hm? What?”

Eddie is looking up at him with big, genuine, sad puppy eyes from the breakfast counter. So, it’s not a joke. It’s a real question. And that’s…huh. Hm.

“Y’know, you like…guys. Am I…sometimes I just don’t think…y’know, would you fuck me?”

Richie doesn’t even try to answer that. He stares back as the question repeats over and over in his head like a broken fucking record. He can’t even make some _Silence of the Lambs_ joke because it’s actually the hottest thing he’s ever heard or seen or thought or considered and nothing is happening in his brain right now that isn’t that. Absolutely nothing. Instead of the monkey with the cymbals, it’s Eddie going, _“Would you fuck me? Would you fuck me? Would you fuck me? Wo—"_

Eddie shakes his head and looks away, probably because Richie is looking at him like a horny, brain-dead zombie. And maybe drooling.

“Never mind. It’s stupid.”

“Well—wait, wo—you—um—you—huh, I don’t—gee, I—uh—” Richie swallows his smoothie in one gulp, like it’s the really fucking strong chaser he wishes it was.

“Look, no, forget it, I shouldn’t…forget I asked.”

“Hy—” Richie’s eyebrows raise to the top of his forehead. His voice lifts about thirteen octaves. “Hypothetically?”

Eddie frowns. “Yeah.”

Of course. Right. Yeah. Hypothetically. Of course. _Duh._

“Right. Uh, yeah, I mean, s—sure, hypothetically, sure, you’re, uh…you’re…a…good-looking guy, Eds, you know, got good…uh, bone structure, and…you smell…nice.”

“I… _smell nice?”_

“Yeah. You know. That’s important. In a prospective— _hypothetical—_ sexual partner. Hypothetically. Pheromones. And stuff.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Wh—why? Wait, why? Wh—what’s this about?”

Eddie looks down and shrugs.

“I dunno. I…I guess it’s all part of it. The, uh…finding myself thing. Figuring out who I am, you know, on my own, without Myra, or…”

He goes quiet, but the _“or”_ goes without saying.

Richie nods.

Eddie continues. “Sex with my wife wasn’t…was never…I don’t mean to be unkind, but it wasn’t…”

“…good?”

“Satisfying,” Eddie answers. “I don’t…we weren’t…right. For each other.”

“Right.”

Eddie swallows.

“You met her, didn’t you? At the hospital?”

Richie looks down at his feet, hands bracing against the countertop. His jaw slides from side-to-side.

“Yeah.” It’s dry.

“Then you know.”

Richie is surprised by the way Eddie says it. It’s a little dark, and unforgiving, for someone who _“doesn’t mean to be unkind”._ But he’s not gonna argue.

“Why were you together?” Richie asks, trying not to sound jealous and probably failing.

“Convenience,” Eddie answers with a half-shrug, as though that’s a completely normal and acceptable answer to the question. And he does not elaborate.

“Oh, wow, never told me you were a romantic,” Richie teases. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“I’m not. Or, I don’t think I am. I…” then he pauses. Or…stops himself. He bites his lip. Then, he digs his phone out of his pocket.

“Actually,” Eddie starts, “I’ve been…uh, trying out Grindr.”

Every fucking particle of Richie’s body stops. Just stops. He looks back at Eddie blankly, like he hadn’t even said anything. Mostly because Richie’s sure he’s old, and his hearing’s going to shit, and he didn’t say what Richie thinks he heard.

But—funny thing is, Eddie’s pulling up the app on his phone. And Richie can see it. From where he’s standing.

Eddie laughs, nervously, and scratches at the back of his neck.

“I, uh, I think I’ll probably just delete it, though. I don’t know. It feels fucking weird. Everyone on here is uncomfortably younger and, uh, way hotter than I am, and I can’t take a picture of myself to save my life, and what few interactions I’ve had, just…doesn’t feel…I don’t know. Don’t think that’s really what I’m after, anyway.” Eddie looks up. His face screws up when he sees the way Richie looks. “Uh, Richie?”

“Yeah, yeah—one second, sorry, could you just, uh, hold that thought? I gotta go take a piss.”

“Oh, uh, no, yeah, go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

Then, in the bathroom, into his phone:

“I don’t know what that means. What the _fuck_ does that mean? What the fuck does that _mean?_ What am I fucking supposed to do with that, Bev—”

_“I don’t know. I don’t know.”_

“What the fuck. Oh my God. What the fuck. What the fuck is going on.”

_“’Kay, calm down—Richie, breathe.”_

“Do you think it was a joke? Wh—is he screwing with me? Why would he—”

_“I don’t think he’d do that, Richie.”_

“Wh—then, is he gay? Did he just tell me he’s gay? Did he tell _you_ that he’s gay?”

_“No. No, not at all.”_

“So, wh-what, he wants to experiment? Like what, like fucking college?”

_“Well, you said you thought he was going through, like, a mid-life crisis—”_

“Right, so, what, he’s…he’s telling me that he’s experimenting? Why would he tell me that shit? Why would he move in with me and then tell me that shit?”

_“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about you. You know, you could just ask him.”_

“Pffft. Alright. Sure. Yeah, what other brilliant plans you got? Hand him a little love note where he checks one box for yes and one box for no?”

_“Okay, fine, uh…what’s he doing now?”_

“He’s…hold on.”

Richie opens the bathroom door and peers out into the living room. He feels like he’s Bev’s covert, gay man-on-the-ground.

He observes Eddie, in front of the TV where music is playing, in his tank top and joggers, working up a light sweat hopping from foot to foot as he moves his arms in tandem.

“He appears to be either following or creating an elaborate jazzercise routine, set to the song ‘Africa’ by Toto.”

Richie quickly dodges back into the bathroom, out of sight before Eddie sees him.

“Shit, maybe he is gay.”

_“Hey, Richie—” Eddie starts, after finishing a triumphant lick on his ice cream cone. He gets a little on his nose. It’s fucking adorable. Richie wants to lick it off. “…Richie?”_

_Richie blinks, and startles; his heart stopping._

_“Wh—what?”_

_“Wh…were you…why are you staring?”_

_“I wasn’t.”_

_“Huh? Yes, you—”_

_“I wasn’t. I wasn’t staring.” Richie’s face is heating up. His brow furrows in anger. His eyes have a wet sheen._

_“Why are you being weird? You obviously were, or else I wouldn’t have said any—”_

**_(“Dude, why are you being weird? Henry, you didn’t tell me your town was full of fuckin’ fai—")_ **

_“I wasn’t! I wasn’t staring, just shut up about it! Shut the fuck up, alright? Jesus!”_

_Eddie is scared silent._

He does not mention the Grindr thing. It’s one of Richie’s many patented coping mechanisms—that if he ignores the thing, it’s like it isn’t happening.

Eddie doesn’t mention it either, which means it’s working.

That doesn’t mean things are all gravy. They start fighting. And it’s no longer just the dumb, mildly irritating but secretly craved arguments of their youth. They feel more substantial than that. More real. They cut deeper. He begins to think it’s a side effect of living together. The key difference, Richie thinks, is that they don’t make him feel all that good anymore.

“Whatcha makin’?” Richie sidles into the kitchen, peering into the mixing bowl that smells fucking delightful. Eddie’s got a cookbook in his hands that must weigh about five tons and he’s wearing Richie’s dumb apron, which he bought—like everything else in his home—ironically; the one that says _“Kiss the Cook”_ with little hearts all over it. He’s also bought a shit-ton of candles over the past few weeks and has now lit _all_ of them, in and around the kitchen/living area. As if he were trying to win them an award for _biggest fire hazard._

“Richie, please, you can’t be here right now. I need to think.”

Richie’s eyes dance with mirth. He grins, sticks a finger in the batter and licks it.

“Oh, come on, I’m preventing you from fucking _thinking_ now?”

Eddie’s eyes flash when he looks at him, and he grabs him by the offending wrist and pushes him away with all the strength he can muster—which is more than Richie’d normally expect from Eddie but still not enough to really move him.

“Are you fucking serious? Don’t fucking do that! Jesus Christ, Richie, I’ve been here for an hour trying to figure out this recipe—”

Richie’s eyes go big. “Then take a fucking break!”

“How about I don’t _want_ to, Richie? How about that? Go watch fucking football or jerk yourself off, or whatever, and fucking leave me to do the things that _I_ enjoy, alright?”

“Oh! This is you _enjoying_ something? _Fuck!_ I wouldn’t have known!” Richie’s whole body rocks in reaction to that—admittedly blowing it out of proportion just to be a bitch. “All I have to do is fucking breathe in your presence and somehow I’ve ruined your fucking afternoon. That’s not exactly a sign of someone who’s fuckin’ _unwinding,_ bud.”

“No, I—Richie, I ask you once to do something, and you don’t like it, or you don’t listen, and then yeah, asshole, I’m gonna get pissed at you!”

“You told me to fuck off for no reason!”

“No, I told you to leave so I could think! Fuckin’ crowding me and sticking your dirty fuckin’ fingers into the—”

“All of that’s bullshit, alright, you’re just being an uptight bitch.”

“Fuck _you,_ Richie—"

“Since you’re entering into this shiny, exciting, new stage in your life, here’s a little nugget of wisdom for ya: the key to life isn’t at the bottom of a fucking book, dumbass.”

He yanks the cookbook out of Eddie’s hand and out of his short, little reach and Eddie’s jaw sets.

“You can’t _read_ about how to enjoy your fucking life. You just _do it,_ alright? You don’t think about it so much. But instead you light a bunch of candles around my fucking house and bake a damn cake like that’s all that was wrong with your life—a fucking absence of candles and baked goods! You’re spending all this fucking time obsessing over shit—micromanaging your life down to the fuckin’ bone—all I’m trying to do is get you to fuckin’ relax and breathe a little, and I don’t appreciate getting my fuckin’ head bit off!”

“I’m not—I can’t—I’m just trying to—”

“Have fun? Loosen up? Take a load off? Whatever the fuck it is, I’m telling you, you’re doing it wrong.”

Instead of getting angrier, like he expected, Eddie’s face just falls. He looks like he might be about to cry. For a second he regrets immediately, Richie doesn’t exactly feel bad for him. A couple of days ago, it was a different fight, and Richie was its victim. It started with the laundry and Richie not taking his shit out of the dryer for days, and ended, somehow, with a screaming-match and some awful deep-cuts about Richie’s tendency to _“ignore things and pretend they aren’t happening if you’re not forced to face them, like a fucking child with no fucking object permanence!”_

Richie didn’t burst into tears over it. Even though he kind of wanted to.

But Eddie does.

First, he looks like he’s making a concerted effort not to. But he’s looking everywhere but at Richie and eventually the only sound that will come out of his mouth is a choked out:

“I know.”

He, frowning deep with wet eyes, backs up against the countertop and sort of collapses on his ass to the tile floor.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie mutters in earnestness, while Richie stands there with his dick in his hand. Or just about, anyway. His eyes are a little wide at the reaction he’s mustered from Eddie and he’s starting to feel like a real fuckin’ piece of shit. “I’ve been such a bitch to you. And you’ve opened up your home to me and I…all I do is ride you and act like I don’t…like I don’t want you around, and that’s really not true, I just…I just don’t…I don’t know how to do it.”

“Wh-what?” Richie manages.

“Be happy.” Eddie shrugs, face all screwed up. “I’m not good at it. I suck.” He tears the kitchen towel off his shoulder and throws it, somewhat weakly, a few feet away.

Richie thinks.

He turns; opens up his fridge. He pulls out two bottles of Dos Equis and leans down to tap at Eddie’s foot with one of them.

“Come on. Up.”

Eddie reaches for the beer limply, grabbing at air.

“No. Nah. You don’t get it unless you get up. Come on. We’re takin’ it to the couch.”

Eddie whines and groans, but does, eventually, pull himself up.

Eddie plops himself down on the couch after Richie, who finally hands him his beer after popping the top off with a bottle opener. Richie leans back on the couch and kicks his feet up, while Eddie just sort of sits there, somberly. They both drink.

“Can I ask you something?” Richie asks.

“You just did.”

Richie ignores him. “Why did you show up at my house a month ago?”

Eddie frowns at him.

“No, I mean, like…why was I the choice? ‘Cause I don’t fuckin’ get it, man. I’m not…I’m not exactly the friend you go to for a mid-life crisis. And we…don’t…”

“What?”

“I’ll be honest, Eds, we don’t even know each other that well. I mean, twenty-seven years is a long…that’s a long time.”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods after a beat. “It is.”

Eddie takes a longer, more pointed swig of his beer. Maybe trying to forget all he’s forgotten.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says with another little shrug. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Richie doesn’t really want to ask about what kind of idea it seems like now. Instead, he stands up and goes back to the fridge, and pulls out the whole fucking case. He comes back and drops it on the coffee table with a loud _thud._

“I’m not drinking all that,” Eddie tells him in no uncertain terms.

“You’re drinking however much it takes to get you drunk.”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

“When is the _last time_ you got drunk?” Richie presses.

“I was—! At dinner, at the Jade, I—!”

“No. No. Shut up. You drank two glasses of white wine. I watched you.” Eddie opens his mouth again, so Richie puts a stop to it. “No—I don’t wanna hear it. Drink.”

**One beer in:**

“I shouldn’t have been so hard on you,” Richie concludes. “Back there. C’mon, you don’t suck at being happy. Nobody sucks at being happy.”

“I do.” Eddie’s frowning.

“Nah, come on, now. Eds, everybody’s got their shit. We’re all just hurdling around in space on a big fuckin’ rock. You’re trying your fuckin’ best. You’re figurin’ shit out. That’s all any of us can do, anyway. Shit.” Richie takes another drink.

“I know I’m boring.” Eddie mumbles, quiet. Richie almost doesn’t catch it.

“Wh—Eds, you’re not—”

“No, I know I am. For so long I just didn’t know I had the option to be anything else. Now I know better, and I’m realizing I have no fucking idea who I am outside of…routine. Schedule. Y’know. Rigidity.”

Richie narrows his eyes. “You’re not fucking boring, Eds. I’m telling you, you’re not. You’re, like, the least boring person in the world.”

Eddie actually looks sort of disgusted.

“Oh, shut up. You’re being nice.” Eds crosses his legs, folds his arms and takes another sip of beer.

“I’m not _nice.”_

“Yeah, you are. To me, you are. Sometimes.”

“Yeah? And why’s that? Because I think you’re a lame, boring piece of shit and I can’t stand to be around you?”

Eddie hiccups. “I only feel comfortable in environments I can totally control. ‘S what my shrink says.”

“Did they also say you can’t take a compliment without changing the fuckin’ subject?”

“I’m not changing the subject. I’m fucking boring. What kind of exciting fuckin’ person can’t exist in a space without sucking all the fun out of it?”

“You don’t suck fun. You’re not a fun-sucker.”

“I’m a fun-sucker. I’m a fun-sucker, Richie.”

Richie shakes his head. “Mm-mm. You’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

“Are—”

**Two beers in:**

“Okay, you start.”

“Me? Why me start? You start—it was your fuckin’ idea!”

Richie groans. “Ugh. Fine. Alright, uh…well, okay, how about this: why did you really marry your wife?”

Eddie’s eyes go a little shell-shocked. Then, he’s reaching for his beer on the coffee table. Richie starts smacking his hand away.

“Ah—hey, hey, hey, hey! You are not drinking already!”

“You said whenever you don’t want to answer, drink.”

“C’mon, man, don’t be a pussy, it’s the first fucking question.”

“I thought you were gonna ask me what my favorite 80’s movie was, or some shit! It’s _Top Gun_ , by the way.”

“Wow, Eddie, that would be really interesting, if that had been the fucking question I’d asked you.”

Eddie makes a prolonged noise of irritation in the back of his throat. “Fine. Fuckin’…fine. I already told you, anyway. Convenience.”

“Gimme a real answer.”

“That _is_ the real answer.” Eddie sighs; he runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I…my mom was dying, alright? She…she was dying, and I’d met Myra at church, and we’d went out a couple times, and it…it just…it made sense.”

“I don’t think it ever made any fuckin’ sense. I think that’s what you tell yourself at night so you sleep better.”

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

“What the hell does your mom dying have to do with anything, anyway?”

Eddie frowns. “That’s another question.”

“No, that’s a fucking clarifying question for the question I already asked you.”

Eddie stares down at his beer, running his thumb around the ring of the bottle.

“Didn’t want her to die disappointed,” he mumbles.

Richie stares back at Eddie, thinking—about Sonia Kaspbrak and the legacy of pain and general fucked up-edness she left her son—and he realizes his face is all tense—nostrils flared and jaw setting.

“Hated that bitch,” he says, no holds barred, and takes an impassioned swig.

Eddie doesn’t respond.

“What,” Eddie starts, grabbing his beer, finally, off the table, “was your first time?”

“Shannon Dorsey. Junior year.”

“You can tell the truth or you can drink, asshole.”

“No, I never lie.”

“Fuck you, _Shannon Dorsey._ Shannon Dorsey did not let you into her pants.”

Richie looks down at the couch cushions and presses his beer bottle into them until it leaves an indentation.

“Okay, maybe not,” he admits. “But it sounds a lot better than the guy that fucked me up the ass in my dorm room with the lights off and then left when I started crying.”

“Jesus Christ, Richie—”

“I’m still waiting for him to call me back.”

“Did you—were you not…” Eddie sort of clears his throat. “…enjoying it?”

“No, it was good, I was just really fuckin’ emotional. I’d, uh,” he swallows, “obviously, never been with a guy before. Or, anyone. Not even Shannon Dorsey. But we did make out—I’m not lying about that. There was heavy petting.”

“Richie, give it a rest already.”

“’Kay.”

Then, Richie thinks.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Your first time. The big _‘V’_. _”_

Richie thinks he can feel the first beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and takes a nervous drink. As soon as he asks it, he realizes he doesn’t really want to know—in that horribly anxious way that it’s absolutely the _only thing in the world_ he wants to know. _Needs_ to know. But he doesn’t want to. Even though he does.

It hurts his brain, so he drinks again.

“Oh, uh,” Eddie coughs awkwardly. “It was…it was Myra.”

Richie freezes with his mouth still around the bottle.

 _“No it was not!”_ he says into the glass, making a muffled echo.

Eddie gives a big nod that says he’s fairly ashamed to admit it.

“Yes, it was,” he says, affirmatively. “Our wedding night.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you, _your wedding night._ Oh my God. Oh, my God, you poor man.”

“I know.”

“And you never…you know…”

Eddie cocks his head. “What?”

“C’mon. You’re married to a woman you don’t like, you’ve never known the touch of another…”

“Oh—no, no, I never…I never screwed around on her. That’s not…no.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“’Cause I wouldn’t think less of you if you—”

“Richie, I never cheated on my wife, okay?”

“Jesus. Yeah, okay, I believe you.” He shakes his head. “No wonder you’re on Grindr.”

Richie wishes he could open his fucking mouth wide enough to create a black hole to swallow himself in.

Eddie’s staring back at him with some kinda look—it’s too bad he can’t see it, because he’s too busy staring out into space and pleading for death.

After what is—maybe—a long minute, Eddie clears his throat.

“When did you…know?”

Richie blinks; finally forces himself to look back at him.

“Hm?”

“That you…that you were gay. When did you figure it out?”

Richie sits up with a rigid back. He stares at Eddie now.

Eddie’s look is indecipherable. Frustrating as all hell. But there’s something there. Some...line of thinking, from Richie’s slip-up to Eddie’s question. And there’s something in his eyes that has Richie’s heart all caught up, confusingly, in his throat. _That’s not where it belongs,_ Richie thinks. With Eddie, it’s almost always in his stomach.

It’s stepping into uncharted territory, for both of them. That much is plain.

Richie doesn’t remove his eyes from Eddie’s as he grabs his beer, and drinks.

Eddie’s mouth forms a thin line.

Richie wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“’Kay. My turn. I got a question.”

Eddie looks up, cautious.

Richie swallows down his heart.

“Are you really into guys or is swiping on Grindr just another fun way to pass the time? You know, like, uh, candles and baking.”

Eddie looks away.

He doesn’t say anything. Richie kinda thinks he’s broken him.

Then he’s reaching for the open case.

“Really?” Richie deadpans. “You drop that shit on me over breakfast like it’s the five-day forecast but you’re gonna fuckin’ refuse to talk about it now?”

“No,” Eddie rips off the bottlecap. “If I’m gonna answer that, I just need another fucking beer.”

**Three beers in:**

Eddie raps his knuckles against the glass bottle, and lets his head fall back against the couch cushions, staring up at the ceiling. Richie waits, patiently.

“Okay, I…I know, that was…maybe not…the _best_ way to tell you.”

Richie’s already got his head in his hands. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Eddie sits up. “Look, there’s no fucking self-help book for that shit, alright? I—I don’t know! I thought it was, you know, conversational!”

 _“Conver—_ Eddie, what the fuck, man—”

Eddie groans, long and painful, and shoves a pillow in his face to stifle it.

He drops it back in his lap. “I’m a fucking mess, Richie. I can’t even tell you that I’m probably gay without doing, some, like…weird…shit! I—I didn’t want to make it weird, I just…I fuckin’ froze, alright? I panicked. I didn’t know how to say it, and then I realized I kind of…couldn’t, and that was…what I landed on. I know it’s stupid, but I’m not brave like…like you or anything, alright, I can’t just come out and…it’s like…it’s like the words wouldn’t come. I…do you…do you know what I’m saying?”

_Probably gay probably gay probably gay probably gay probably gay I’m probably gay probably—_

“Richie, say something.”

Richie panics. “There were two gunmen at the Kennedy assassination.”

“Say something _else.”_

“Uh, shit, uh, I don’t know, Eddie—”

“Say something about me telling you I’m _gay._ ”

“That’s…cool.”

“That’s _cool?”_

“I mean, uh, right on, man. Gay rights.”

“Richie,” and it genuinely looks like Eddie is begging now. “C’mon, you gotta give me more than that.”

Richie starts to feel like he’s just made of limbs—and feels acutely how every single one of them is just completely useless and limp right now—and how his face probably looks like he has gas pains.

“I…can’t, Eds,” he says, honestly. “I’m sorry, I…it’s…it’s kind of a lot.”

Eddie frowns, somewhat drunkenly. “You’re never lost for words.”

“I…” Richie starts, not knowing quite how he will finish. “I am now.”

Eddie’s frown only gets deeper. Richie only wishes he knew why.

“Oh.”

**Four beers in:**

Eddie has gotten really quiet.

Richie has started nudging his foot with his own. That always worked in the hammock.

Then Eddie pushes back, hard, and he knows he’s won.

“Knock it off, dipshit.”

“What’s goin’ on in that big brain of yours, Eds?”

“’M not…I’m not…thinking.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Just…musing.”

“Oh? About?”

“Stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“Like…” Eddie readjusts himself on the couch, pulling his knees up to his chest and bringing his beer with him. “Like, I’m…I’m good-looking. You know. I’m not bad. I’ve got a nice…I’m kinda…you know, I’m alright.”

“R-right.”

“I should’ve had sex before I got married. With a man. Y’know, I thought…I wondered…when I was a kid, I thought about…uhm…boys. Like that. And I should’ve been able to…to do that. Why didn’t I do that? I could’ve known. I could’ve…I wouldn’t’ve wasted my whole life.”

Richie swallows. “But now you know, right?”

Eddie makes a dismissive noise, and nothing else.

“What?”

“Told you. Never been with anyone but Myra.”

Richie’s eyes go big. “O-oh. Wait, but I thought…Grindr…?”

“I told you. I didn’t like it. It felt gross.”

“…Oh.”

“I just…” Eddie stares down into his beer. “It’s like…after the clown, and after my mom, I was supposed to…I was supposed to take back control over my life, you know?”

“You did,” Richie says, with a sudden swell of feeling.

“Maybe,” Eddie mutters. “But I don’t feel that way. In every aspect of my life, I jus’ feel powerless. And incompetent.”

Richie nudges him with his foot again.

“You’re not drunk enough if you’re still using words like _impomp—in—incom—”_

_“Incompetent.”_

“Yeah. Drink more.”

Eddie does.

**Five beers in:**

Eddie’s beers have caught up to him because his eyes shine now, in a way that tells Richie they’re about to start saying way more of the things they shouldn’t say.

 _“We_ shouldn’t have sex though, right?”

Aaaand there it is.

Richie’s throat goes all the way dry and he blinks, suddenly feeling himself sobering up. He wasn’t really expecting them to arrive _there_ quite so fast.

“Uh…”

“’Cause that would be, like, a bad idea.”

“R…right…”

“Divorce isn’t through yet. Besides, living in the same house. Sharing one washing machine. Kitchen. Shower. That’s…that’d be…crazy. We’d…fuck it up. The…friends thing. We’d kill each other. Hormones. Y’know. Bad, terrible idea.”

“Mhm. Yeah. Such…a bad idea.” Richie’s just going along with it this point, robotically, and his brain doesn’t quite catch up enough for him to hit himself for saying it. _“What the fuck are you doing?”_ his brain’ll be shouting thirty seconds from now. _“No! No! It’s not a bad idea! It’s not! Say, ‘Yes, Eddie. I’d be glad to fuck you, Eddie. That’d be great, Eddie. No, it wouldn’t ruin our friendship, Eddie. Nothing friendlier than a good dick-down, I say.’”_

Eddie nods. “Good. Glad we covered that.”

“Yep.” Richie pops the _“p”_ at the end.

There is, you know, a great deal of fucking silence after that.

Then, because silence has always bothered the shit out of Eddie:

“’Cause, you know, I had thought about it.”

Ohhh…. _nnnooooo……._

“Ed—you…”

“…thought about it.”

“Oh…”

“And I don’t think…well, whatever. What am I saying? You wouldn’t want to anyway. I just thought—”

“W-wait, wait, wh—”

“You know, I thought…but never mind. I’m glad we agree. Bad idea.”

“But you…” Richie’s eyes are big, still stuck on what Eddie said about ten seconds back. “You thought…about us…having…”

 _“Sex,_ Richie, yes, God, I’ve thought about us having sex. Jesus Christ, it’s like _Groundhog’s Day_ with you.”

Richie blinks. He looks up at Eddie.

“W-wait. Is that why you…is that why you came here? Wh—just ‘cause you thought you were gonna get laid?”

Eddie freezes. His mouth goes slack.

“I—no, Richie—I—that’s…I mean, that’s not—”

“I’m kidding! Holy shit, your face!”

“Fuck _offff,_ God—Richie—” Eddie shoves him with his foot.

“Oh my God! That’s good. That’s so good. You really thought—dude, if all of this had just been some master plan to get me to sleep with you, do you know how fucking _impressed_ I’d be?”

“Jesus Christ—”

“I’d probably drop down and give you a congratulatory blowie, just for that!”

**Six beers in:**

_“IT’S GONNA TAKE A LOT TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM YOU-U! THERE’S NOTHING THAT A HUNDRED MEN OR MORE COULD EVER DO! I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA-A!”_

**Seven beers in:**

When Richie peers at his phone and it’s 2am, that’s when the last functioning part of Richie’s brain tells him it might be time to pack it in.

“You’re my best friend. Rich—Richie, _you’remybestfrien_. Did I ever tell you—” Eddie hiccups, as he’s leaning all of his weight on Richie as he walks him to his room. “Did I ever tell you that? When we— _wewerekids?”_

“Mhmm. Yeah. Uh-huh.”

“You have pr—really pretty eyes.”

“Mm, _thankyou.”_

“So blue. Glasses. ’D you know they’re making a sequel? To _Top Gun?_ _Top Gun 2,_ they’ll call it.”

_“Top Gun Harder.”_

_“2 Top 2 Gun.”_

“Genius. You’re a genius, Eds.”

 _“GodIknow._ Wow. Hey. You’re _verystrong.”_

Eddie’s staring at Richie’s arms while Richie sits him down on the bed, and once he does, and Eddie bounces on the mattress, their faces get…too close. He feels Eddie’s boozy breath hit his mouth. And Eddie feels it too, and probably won’t remember it tomorrow anyway, but Richie knows he’s not quite so drunk and definitely, definitely will.

He steps back an appropriate distance.

Eddie tries to hide a frown—poorly—and starts bouncing up and down on the bed, staring at his feet.

“Thanks, Rich.”

“No problem. It was only, like, a couple’a feet from here to the living room, so it was no big—”

“Nah. No. Not what I mean.”

“Oh,” Richie nods. “Right.”

“You’re very good,” Eddie’s saying, as he starts kicking his feet up on the mattress and laying his head down on the pillow. “You’re a very good person.” He yawns.

Richie gives a gentle scoff, and is about to say something entirely self-deprecating, when Eddie—

“You’re a better person than me.”

—Eddie beats him to the punch.

Richie’d say something about it, but Eddie’s out like a light.

_“She—she didn’t—she—”_

_Richie kneels below Eddie as he sobs on the park bench, a hand gently placed on his knee._

_“Tell me what happened. Eds, come on, tell me what happened.”_

_“I’m sorry, Richie. I’m so sorry. I told her everything. About…about the house, about the clown, about Bill and Georgie and Betty Ripsom—but she…she didn’t believe me, and she—”_

_“Hey. Hey, breathe. Eds, just breathe, okay? Do you want your inhaler?”_

_Eddie shakes his head, viciously._

_“Okay.”_

_“It’s not real, anyway. It’s…it’s…” But Eddie just lets out another sob. Richie’s heart aches._

_“Take your time.” Richie rubs small circles on Eddie’s knee with his thumb. Eddie sniffles a bit, and collects himself._

_“I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid, Richie, I can’t believe it.”_

_“You’re not. You’re not stupid.”_

_“I let her do it again. I let her drag me around, doctor to doctor, tests and more tests, and fucking_ nothing. _But now, this time, she…she took me to this shrink, and I talked to her…she said…she was worried about…about my mom, and…and she said it was called Munch—Munchausen’s—anyway as soon as she mentioned it to her, she freaked out and drove me home anyway. Said we weren’t going back.”_

_“But she said…your mom…?”_

_Eddie grimaces. “My mom doesn’t want to hear it if it’s something wrong with her. It was a real fucking wake-up call, I guess. All she went on about on the drive home is how she never trusted shrinks anyway, after something they said to her when she saw one for Dad.”_

_Richie can’t really figure out the words to say. He just keeps drawing the circles._

_“I’m so fucked up, Richie. I let her. I let her fuck me up.”_

_“No, you’re not, and no, you didn’t. Stop.”_

_Eventually, Eddie’s sniffles peter out into a small, sad kinda smile. Richie marks that down as some kinda victory._

There is a knocking at his front door that sounds like a fucking jackhammer.

Richie throws on a bathrobe over his boxers and dry-swallows two aspirin on his way to the door, mumbling obscenities under his breath.

“Alright! _All-right!_ Jesus fucking—”

He opens the door.

“What the fuck.”

Myra Kaspbrak stands in front of him with her arms crossed and a bitchy look decorating an already less-than-fucking-stellar face.

“I’m looking for my _husband._ I need to speak with him.”

Richie—quickly—steps outside and closes the door behind him.

“Get the fuck off my property. Are you _joking?_ How the _fuck_ are you here right now? _”_

“I know he’s in there. I know he came here.” She clutches her handbag tighter and purses her lips, eyeing Richie up and down—her judgments loud. “I’m not looking to start anything with you. I just need to see him.”

“Yeah, no, you don’t. Come on, time to go.”

He puts his hands on her shoulders and starts to forcibly turn her around, which, naturally, has her freaking the fuck out.

“Get your hands off me, or I swear to God, I’ll leave—”

“Yeah, don’t threaten me with a good time.”

“I’ll _leave_ , and I won’t bother signing these settlement papers. I’ll take him to court.”

Richie lets her go at that, but his jaw’s clenching and he just stares at her in disbelief.

“God, you’re a real c—"

“Myra?”

Richie and Myra both turn to see Eddie standing in the now-open front door, freshly awake and confusion written plain on his face.

“Richie, wh—”

“Eddie,” Myra starts, dusting herself off, like Richie’d just suplex-ed her into the dirt or something. “Sweetie, do you mind, could we…?” She takes the papers out of her bag and shakes them a little in the air.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Eddie asks instead, looking a little angry.

Myra adjusts her hair. “I was in the area, anyway. Visiting a friend. I thought I’d stop by, and we’d have this discussion in person. I thought I’d, you know, afford you that much.”

“I told you I didn’t want to see you, Myra. I told you that.”

“Honey, I just thought—”

“Richie, could you please…give us some space? I’m…sorry,” Eddie says, looking almost sheepish, like he really means that.

Richie blinks, suddenly awake from his trance of shock. “Yeah. Yeah.”

He walks back up the steps. When he’s brushing shoulders with Eddie, he searches for his eyes; gives him the _look._

Eddie sees it; gives him a tight little nod. Richie heads back inside, shutting the door behind him.

It’s way too long before he hears the front door open and shut again from his bedroom. So long that he’d already sent Eddie about five texts to the tune of, _“Yo. You good? She didn’t kill you and stuff your body in the trunk of her car, did she? If you are currently being kidnapped by your ex-wife, send three eggplant emojis and a winky-face. That’ll be our code.”_ , and had drafted about two more. No response. He’d been getting ready to go peer out a window when he heard it.

Richie cautiously closes his laptop and stands up from his desk, walking on padded feet into the hallway. He cranes his neck to look into the kitchen and living room. Empty.

“Eds?” he calls out. “You—” 

He stops when he turns and sees Eddie sitting curled up on his bed, arms wrapped tightly around knees pulled to his chest, holding them in a vice.

Richie can see from here that he’s shaking.

_“Eddie—”_

He strides into the room.

“I’m sorry. Richie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know she would come here. I didn’t tell her. I swear, I didn’t. She must’ve…asked Bill, or, or someone who didn’t…didn’t know not to tell…and then, Jesus Christ, googled your address, or…or…”

“No—” Richie starts, and moves, carefully, to sit on the foot of the bed. “No, no, no, no, it’s—it’s not your fault. Hey, it’s not a big deal. I can always, y’know, move to Mexico, or something. If she gets to be a problem.”

Eddie doesn’t laugh. But then again, Richie supposes, it wasn’t really a joke.

“Are you…” Richie starts again. “Do you…wanna talk about it?”

Eddie’s mouth is a hard line, and he’s shaking his head profusely, and Richie’s nodding and soothing: “Okay, Okay,”.

Eddie swallows, hard. “I just—she just— _fucking_ —Christ—"

It’s the gasps for breath between the words that has Richie finally recognizing this for what it is.

“Okay. Alright. Hey, can I get you some water?” Eddie shakes his head again. “Alright. Do you want your inhaler?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Burned it.”

“Wh-what?”

“Mike’s ritual. Burned it. Never refilled it.”

But Richie still hears him struggling for breath, and it’s not getting better. Richie’s eyes go big for a second, and then he’s up and gone, grabbing something out of a kitchen cabinet, and walking back in the room, bringing a glass of water with him anyway, despite Eddie’s insistence against it.

“Here. Try this.” He holds out a paper bag, which Eddie looks like skeptically.

“But I’m not…nauseous.”

“Nah, breathe into it. Come on. Just try it. For me.”

Eddie takes it and Richie sets the glass down on the end table. He tries it tentatively.

“Deep breaths, c’mon. That’s it,” Richie’s saying, sitting back down again on the bed. He listens as the shakiness gradually leaves Eddie’s breath, and the sound gets fuller, and the paper bag fills up and decompresses slower, and slower. Eddie’s shoulders relax a bit.

Richie reaches up and gently pulls it away. He holds the glass of water up in its place.

“Drink.”

Eddie does, slowly. Richie watches. Then, when it crawls into his brain that maybe this is… _he doesn’t know—too much?_ —he stops. Looks down at his hands. Anywhere else.

He likes taking care of Eddie, and he will, but he doesn’t have to be… _that way_ about it.

Richie hears the gentle thud of the glass hitting the end table and sees it in his periphery. Eddie has calmed down a bit, and is fighting a war with his eyes—unable to decide whether to look at Richie or his hands in his lap.

“How’d you know the bag would work?” he mutters, quiet.

Richie shrugs. “I’ve freaked out before a show once or twice. Some guy backstage told me about it once. It worked.”

Eddie nods.

There’s a long pause.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with her.”

Richie makes a _“psssh”_ sound. “Oh, God, Eds. That’s nothing. You were married to her.”

Eddie nods again; won’t look at him.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with me.”

“Wh-what?” Richie’s voice shakes.

“You shouldn’t have to do this. All the time. You used to do it when we were kids, too. I remember. It was a fucking burden to you, Richie, and it wasn’t fair.”

“A _burden?_ You think you’re a _burden_ to me?”

Eddie ignores him. “I shouldn’t have come here. Coming here was so fucking selfish. I just…I remembered how good you used to make me feel, when everything got…too much, and I just…I wanted that so bad again, and you…you’re _so_ good, and you’ll drop everything to help me and you shouldn’t _have_ _to_ —but you did, _again,_ and then I—I—”

“Eddie! Eddie—stop, Eddie—” Richie’s grabbing for him—anything, any part of him. He lands on his wrists.

Eddie looks up at him beneath thick lashes. The look is enough to break Richie’s heart in two.

“Eddie, you’re a fuckin’ delight to me, are you nuts?”

“You’ve looked out for me your whole life.”

“Well, yeah, ‘cause I—”

“How is that fair?”

“I don’t give a shit about what’s fair, Eds, I give a shit about _you.”_ Richie narrows his eyes. “’Fuck are you talking about _fair_ for, anyway? What wasn’t fair was you having a bitch for a mom who fucked with your head and told you she did it ‘cause she loved you— _that_ wasn’t fucking fair. That I have to walk five feet to my kitchen and get you a fucking _paper bag?_ Eddie, I’d get you the fucking moon for free and I’d have a jolly fuckin’ time doing it, if that helped you somehow.”

Eddie blinks at him, with big brown eyes.

His eyes trace a path around Richie’s frame, and his jaw moves around, like he’s thinking about that. Really, really hard.

“That’s…” he begins. “You…”

Eddie sniffles, suddenly, and wipes away wetness from his eyes that Richie is only just realizing was there.

“Goddammit,” Eddie swears. “I hate it when you do that.”

Richie lifts one corner of his lips upward. “What? Make you cry?”

“No, that…that thing. Where I can’t fucking believe you’re real, for a second.”

Well. There’s not much to say to that.

He’d really like to kiss him. Right now. Right the fuck now. But he’s not going to. For a couple of reasons. ‘S just hard, ‘cause…’cause he can’t really think about anything else anymore. God, he’s gonna have the saddest, guilt-ridden, emotional jerk off to this later.

Eddie’s still wiping at his eyes.

“Anyway, I’m, uh…I’m good now. I’m okay. Just…she…it’s…I can talk about it now, I think. If you want.”

Richie nods; swallows. “Did she sign the settlement papers?”

“No. Not yet. But that’s not what this was about.”

“What do you mean?”

Eddie’s frown is horrible. And bitter. “She…she didn’t fly across the country for the fucking settlement papers. She doesn’t have fucking _friends_ in L.A.. This was just a threat. Thinly veiled, but, y’know.”

“What?” Richie bites, lowly.

Eddie shakes his head. “She knows. She knows I’m gay. I told her, or…heavily implied it, but she didn’t want to hear it. Not…at first. Now, I think…I think she thinks she can get something out of it.”

Richie’s mouth opens and closes. “…Oh.”

“Yeah. _Oh.”_

“She thinks I’m…we’re…” Richie gestures between them.

“Probably.”

Richie winces. “Can I…do anything? To help? I’m sorry, I don’t…I don’t know what...”

“No, probably not. The worst that might happen is if she takes me to court for it, you might have to come in and testify that we’re…you’re not…”

“Your hot little side-piece?”

“Sure.”

“Right. Got it. Can do.”

“But I think I can still get her to sign. Or, I really hope I can. I just want this fucking nightmare to end. All she wants to do is drag it out. Cause me as much pain as possible. It’s her last, stupid little victory.”

“Hey,” and Richie reaches a hand out and places it around Eddie’s calf. “It’s all gonna work out. It’s gonna be fine.”

Eddie—bottom lip pouted out in a way that is _so_ adorable but Richie can’t think of that way because it’s all twisted up in Eddie being very, legitimately upset—nods.

“Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Richie.”

Without thinking too much about it, because he doesn’t fucking want to, Richie shifts his weight to push himself forward, cups a hand on Eddie’s cheek, and presses his lips resolute but gentle to his forehead.

He pulls back and blinks, the reality of what he just did hitting him all too quickly, and he clears his throat a little as he stands and goes to leave the room. He looks back at Eddie as little as possible.

“Hey—uh, Richie?”

Richie stops with his hand on the door and turns back, fighting the deep swell of embarrassment, to play it off like it’s nothing.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Did I…” Eddie winces a little, which really colors the thing he says next. “Last night, did I…at one point…go on about…us…having sex?”

And with that, Richie’s day turns from “extremely shitty” to “dog turd”.

“You, uh…that might’ve come up at some point, yeah.” He tries to smile. Like it’s some big joke. It’s kind of painful.

“Yeah, I’m…sorry. About that. Uh…I was…I was really drunk.”

Richie thinks—maybe—he nods.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I know you didn’t mean it.”

He leaves.

_“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Spaghetti is the sun!”_

_The window to Eddie’s bedroom is shoved open a floor above him, and Eddie sticks his head out—predictably bemused. And pissed._

_“Richie! It’s four in the morning! Are you drunk? What the fuck are you doing?”_

_“I’m practicing for my audition, what the fuck does it look like?” Richie smacks at the playbook in his hand. “School play, numb nuts. And I’m buzzed. Come on, if I was drunk, do you think I could recite this shit? Now, if you’re not gonna be a team player and say your lines, at least freestyle it a little and give me something to work with.”_

_“I’m not freestyling shit! I’m trying to slee—”_

_“As daylight doth a lamp; his eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not right.”_

_Eddie shoots a choice finger out the window._

_“See! How he rests his middle finger upon the sill! Oh, that I were that windowsill, that I might touch that crude finger!”_

_“Jesus fucking Christ, Ri—”_

_“He speaks! Oh, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being o’er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wandering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.”_

_Eddie only stares down with the most tired glare Richie’s ever seen._

_“Pssst—Eddie, the line is—”_

_“Oh, Richie. Oh, Richie. Wherefore art thou, Richie?” Eddie deadpans._

_“Well, the delivery could use some work, but it’s a great first effort.”_

_“I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”_

_“Oh, come on, Spagheds! It’s Shakespeare! It’s the language of love! Where’s your sense of romance? Where’s your appreciation for poetry, and the plight of the human soul?”_

_“Nowhere, at four in the morning.”_

_“You’re no fun.”_

_“I’m tired, is what I am.”_

_“Oh, come on! No one’s too tired to ruminate on the human condition!” He’s still shouting as Eddie closes his bedroom window with a slam. “The bard will win you over yet, Spaghetti!”_

A number of things happen in the following weeks. All sort of disparate and unrelated.

Myra signs the settlement papers. A judge signs the divorce order. And it’s over. There is a visible weight lifted from Eddie, and Richie couldn’t be happier for it. He tells himself the fact that Eddie is now officially a single (and, by all accounts, gay) man is just a happy side-benefit.

Eddie can now focus all of his efforts towards himself. And things change. There’s still some baking. And some candles. But there are other things, too. Eddie starts taking classes online, wants to minor in business, now. Richie thinks that’s very fucking exciting and hot. (He tells him the first part, but not the last.)

Eddie stops reading books on psychology and self-help. Says they wound him up too much. He switches to poetry, and the great American novel.

“Kerouac could get it,” Eddie says on the couch one day, as he scans his copy of _On the Road,_ one leg crossed over another and bouncing casually and lazily, as if he hadn’t just said something funnier than all of Richie’ stand-up routines put together.

Richie sputters. “He— _what?”_

“Like… _God,_ just…the romance of freedom versus the inner trappings of life. It’s so sexy, the way he writes it.”

“Jack Kerouac has been dead for fifty years.”

“And? He could get it.”

“I fucking hate you.”

Then, without skipping a beat, and softer: _“’What do you want out of life?’ I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls. ‘I don't know,’ she said. ‘Just wait on tables and try to get along.’ She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad.’”_

Richie stares back at him. Eddie’s eyes are easy and knowing.

“Huh,” Richie considers, frowning. “Maybe he could get it.”

There is an incident that is incredibly isolated in that both of them refuse to discuss it after it happens—in which Richie (stupidly. He’s just a big, stupid, idiot) makes the decision to jerk-off in the middle of the day while Eddie’s in the house. And he _thought_ he had a class going on at the time but apparently not, because Eddie raps his knuckles twice on the door and doesn’t think about waiting for an answer because the door’s cracked open, and there Richie is at his desk with his dick in his hand and his head thrown back.

At first, when Richie lifts his head, he thinks it’s some crazy dream-manifestation of all his horny thoughts. Like he somehow summoned Eddie with his furious dick rubbing. So he’s a little delirious when Eddie first walks in.

“Hey, Richie, I—o-oh—”

“Fuck—Eds—”

“Holy shit, I’m—holy shit—”

“Dude—”

Eddie panics, turns around and fumbles through the door.

“I’m sorry! Oh my God, I’m so sorr—”

Yeah. They don’t talk about that.

The next week, Richie has a spot on Late Night and he’s nervous for it. He hasn’t made a public appearance in a while—not really since he came out. It wasn’t so bad. As long as he stayed off Twitter, anyway.

He gets ready at home. It’s the best he’s really bothered to clean up in a long fuckin’ time—and he has to say, he looks damn good in a red suit.

There is a loud, _loud_ knock on his door.

“Come in! No dicks out in here!”

Eddie opens the door, but still seems reluctant to walk in past the frame. He coughs.

Richie checks himself in the floor-length mirror one last time; turns around and shakes his ass towards the door.

“Whaddya think? It was either this or booty shorts that say ‘juicy’.”

Eddie coughs again. This time, it’s a bit more of a full-blown fit.

“Looks…uh, you look good.”

“Yeah?” Richie grins.

“Yeah. You nervous?”

Richie looks at him and pulls his lips between his teeth.

“Mmm…mm-mm.” He shakes his head. Then, seeing the kind doubt on Eddie’s face, slowly nods it. “Mm-hmm.”

Eddie smiles, and steps closer.

“Do you need anything?”

Richie gulps. “Well, I wouldn’t say no to a handy.”

Eddie shoves him, but there’s a blush there Richie sort of wishes he’d missed. It gets his brain running too much. Eddie has seen his dick and seen his hand on his dick when he was imagining it was Eddie’s hand on his—yeah, see, there it goes.

“Seriously. You good?” Eddie asks him.

“Seriously. I wouldn’t say no to a handy.”

“I’m gonna kill you.”

“Right, but the handy first.”

“Richie,” Eddie starts. “It’s gonna be fine. People love you.”

“You’ve always told me I’m the least funny comedian you know.”

Eddie grabs a lint roller and brushes off Richie’s shoulders. “Yeah, but you’re also the only comedian I know.”

Richie’s grin strains his cheeks.

Then, lower: “You know that’s all bullshit, anyway. You work harder than anyone. I’ve been jealous of how smart you are since the day I met you. And you’re the single funniest person I’ve ever met.”

“Stop.” Richie’s face heats.

“Fuck you, I’ll do what I want.”

“Okay,” Richie mumbles.

Eddie places his hands on his shoulders and starts walking him down the hall to the front door.

“Now, you’re gonna do great. You’re gonna kill it. And afterwards, when you get home, we’ll order a pizza and watch Desperate Housewives, if you want.”

Richie hears what he’s saying, but his ears start ringing more with every step he takes, and he feels the anxiety building. He’s taking the deep breaths—telling his brain to calm the fuck down, doing everything he should.

When they reach the front door, he turns around.

“I want.”

Eddie smiles. “Cool. Okay. Go get ‘em.”

“Yeah—”

Eddie kisses him.

Oh, _fu—_

As quick as it happened, Eddie’s shooting backwards, eyes wide as fucking dinner plates, his whole body looking tense and sick. Richie feels his anxiety reach a very sudden, immense spike, and level out at 100, and his mouth is opening and closing like a fish under water.

Eddie doesn’t look like he’s breathing. Richie releases a _loud_ gasp of air.

“You—”

“We should—”

“Go. Just…go. We’ll—”

“Yeah, let’s—”

“Good luck!” Eddie’s voice breaks.

“Yep!” Richie’s does, too. More noticeably.

He spins around and darts out the door, closing it quick behind him.

Just as quick, he turns around and walks through it again like a Kramer gag.

“Yeah, but, okay, was that—should we—did you—”

“Richie,” Eddie speaks, body still frozen and voice very measured. “You need…to go.”

“Right. Just…I don’t…What?”

“What?”

“I don’t. I don’t know.”

“I don’t either.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna go.”

“Yeah, I think that’d be best.”

“Right. ‘Kay. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He leaves for real this time.

_“Can you, please—Can you just let me see him—” He’s fighting against Bev as she stands in Eddie’s backyard, arms spread-eagle to block Richie from taking one more step towards the window._

_“He doesn’t want to see you, Richie.”_

_“Fine, just tell me why. Just please, tell me why.”_

_Bev puts down her arms and shrugs, fishing a cigarette out of her pocket along with her lighter. She sticks it in her mouth and lights._

_“I don’t know if I’m at liberty to say.”_

_“Bev, don’t be a fucking bitch—”_

_“I’ll break your arm, Richie Tozier.”_

_“Fine—don’t be an asshole. What did he say?”_

_“All right, he saw you kissing Shannon at the party. And he’s upset. That’s all he’ll tell me.”_

_“Wh—well, what—what does he want from me? An apology? For what?”_

_“I don’t know, Richie, but now’s not the time—come back tomorrow.”_

_“Can you just—All right, can you just tell him I stopped by? And that I wanted to talk to him but that his guard troll wouldn’t let me?”_

_“For that, I’ll tell him you said he smells and wish he was dead.”_

_“Beveerlllyyy…”_

_“Yes, Richie, I’ll tell him. Now, scram.”_

_“I’m sorry. About the…guard troll thing.”_

_“Go, Richie.”_

_“And the bitch thing.”_

_“You’re wearing out your welcome here.”_

_“I’m going, I’m going!”_

When he gets home at 1am, Eddie is sitting hunched over on the ottoman.

Richie closes the door gingerly behind him, and places his keys in the catch-all dish on the table, not taking his eyes off him.

He’s been in a weird fucking headspace all night. He got through the show, and he thought he did alright, so that’s all good. But it’s like his brain’s not sure whether he should be fucking elated or cautiously sad, so it’s settled on some confusing, upsetting, and vaguely horny in-between.

Based on the way he’s looking, he thinks Eddie probably regrets it. So, that’s just great.

Eddie lifts his head up from where his arms are resting on his knees.

“Hey, Richie,” he croaks, in a voice rasped by exhaustion. “You did great.”

“Uh, thanks.” Richie shrugs his bag off his shoulder onto the floor and moves cautiously towards the kitchen. He opens a cabinet and pulls a mug off the shelf. “How, uh…how was class tonight?”

“You know, uh…” Eddie starts in too high a pitch. “Fine. Good. You know. Uneventful. Lecture tonight. Lots of…notes.”

Richie’s reaching for a bag of barbecue chips and starts crunching, because it’s a nice fucking distraction and something to do with his hands. The noise is slightly obnoxious in the utter silence of the house.

“Right,” Richie says with another loud crunch.

There’s a pause.

“Got asked to host SNL tonight.”

“That’s—hey, that’s…that’s awesome, Rich.”

“Yeah, I might do it.” He fills his mug with water from the purifier in the fridge. “You know. If I don’t have anything else going on.”

Eddie laughs a little. Then, more. Richie didn’t think it was all that funny. It sounds like Eddie’s just getting delirious.

“So, uh…” Eddie starts, still chuckling a little. “I like, uh…kissed you, earlier.”

Richie immediately dumps his water back out into the sink and uncorks the whiskey bottle on the counter, and pours that in his mug instead, hands shaking.

“Yep sure did.”

“That’s fuckin’ funny, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Had me in stitches. Couldn’t stop laughing the whole drive there.”

Eddie turns around to fully face him now.

“Richie, I am _so_ fucking sorry—”

“You don’t—you don’t need to—”

“I didn’t even know what—it just sort of happened and I didn’t—”

“Wh—are you…do you…I mean—”

“If you want me to move out, I will—”

“Want you to move out? I don’t want you to move out.”

“I mean, I get it, I was totally out of line, and—”

“Nope. Nope. No, you weren’t.”

Eddie blinks. “Wait, what?”

Richie grips his mug tight. “I sense that we’re on two completely different pages here.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that feeling.”

“Okay,” Richie takes a hard shot from his mug. “I’ll go first. Big dick, honesty time. Um…I feel like…”

He pushes his knuckles into the countertop and searches for what he needs to say here in the pattern of the marble grain.

“I feel like it’s irresponsible for me to have you living in this house and not…be aware that I…have lots of…outstanding, confusing….sexually-charged, but also, you know, like, genuinely, um…I’ve always—I love—I love you.”

He lifts his eyes to see Eddie see him, because he’s probably a masochist. At this point…yeah. Yeah, he’s definitely a masochist.

Eddie’s face is slack. “You—oh.”

“Yeah, so, um…” Richie scratches the hair on the back of his head. “If you…if that was like, a mistake, or whatever, I…I get it, and I’m not…you know, I’m not gonna read anything into it, but you…you should know that I…yeah. I’m…fuck.” Richie pinches his fingers at the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“You’re fuck?” Eddie blinks.

“I’m fuck.”

“Hm.” Eddie nods. He thinks about it. “I’m fuck, too.”

Richie squints. “You—wait. This conversation is weird. Are we talking about the same…Did you just say what I think you…?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, okay. Right. See, that’s what I thought, but I didn’t…” Eddie is standing up and walking towards him. “Know…if…you…”

Eddie’s hand is on the back of his neck and he’s pulling him in and his lips are on his and they’re moving, moving, moving. It’s wet and it’s hot and Richie can feel it this time. His brain can register it for what it is—kissing, real, honest-to-God kissing—as opposed to just a white flash of the force of Eddie’s lips placed on his and just as quickly removed, and too wrapped up in confusing shame.

There’s no shame in this. Eddie’s tongue is in his fucking mouth.

Richie’s hands come up—catch up with the rest of him—respond to the way his whole body is screaming, _“EDDIE, EDDIE, EDDIE”._ They trace Eddie’s cheekbone; caress his ear.

“I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.” Richie’s mouth detaches and dives back in, kissing and sucking on his bottom lip and then licking against the roof of his mouth and moving them so Eddie is pressed into the counter and is gasping at the feeling of Richie’s hard, broad body slotting against his.

They kiss for a while. Richie really likes it. He can’t speak for Eddie, because maybe for him these feelings are newer, or less certain, or more localized to the present, but for Richie, he’s intent on making up for decades. In everything, he carries the weight of feelings he’s been holding since scraped knees and pre-pubescent yearning. It’s depressingly gay and sappy but it’s all he’s got left after he killed the clown and allowed himself to remember that he could feel love.

Maybe, though, his ulterior motive for dragging out the feel of his lips against Eddie’s for so long is that he’s trying to stave off the conversation that probably needed to have happened before they shoved their mouths into each other.

“So, uh…” he’s pulling away a little bit—very unmotivated to really do so. “Should we be doing this?”

“Probably not,” Eddie breathes, and kisses him more. “We don’t really know each other as well as we should.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to know you biblically.”

“We said we were gonna stay friends. So we could live together. And not ruin things.”

“Yeah, but we said that when we were drunk. Lots of people live together and fuck. I hear that’s actually a pretty regular arrangement.”

Eddie pulls back for real now and frowns. “Maybe we shouldn’t be jumping into this.”

Richie sighs. “…Bad idea?”

Eddie nods. “Bad idea.” He swallows. “We should…you know, focus on being friends, first. It’s a lot…you know, that’s happening right now. For…for both of us. My divorce just went through. I…I said I was gonna focus on me. Work on…work on myself. My…problems. You know, be alone for a while.”

“Right.”

“You’re at an incredible place in your career. You’ve worked so hard to get here. You’re…you…I don’t want to distract you from that.”

“Terrible. You’re a terrible distraction.”

“And I…I don’t want you to think that I just…that I came here because…of this, you know. Like, I…I had feelings for you then, sure, you…you were the reason I figured out I was gay, but…but that’s not…that’s not why I…you…we…” Eddie’s panting. His eyes fall back down to Richie’s mouth. Richie’s eyes, on the other hand, never left.

“We shouldn’t…have sex.”

“Right. No sex.”

It’s not, like, two fucking seconds, before their hands are on each other’s belts.

“Well, now I’m just disappointed in both of us.”

“Shut up,” Eddie growls. _Hot._

Eddie wins the race of _who gets the other person’s pants off fastest_ , and pants as he’s kneeling down to pull Richie’s trousers to the floor.

“How long?” he breathes.

“What?”

“How long,” Eddie asks again, “did you love me? Did you know? And not fucking tell me?”

Eddie stands back up again and starts pulling off jacket and t-shirt like he’s on a fucking timer.

“The whole time,” Richie readily admits.

“You son of a bitch,” Eddie’s shoving him back a little, angrily. “You fucking son of a bitch.”

“Whoa, whoa! What’s that for?” Richie puts his hands up in surrender.

“Asshole. Dipshit. Should’ve told me.” Confusingly, Eddie’s now pulling him back and mouthing at his neck and the top of his chest.

“Geez. Tough crowd.” Richie’s fumbling with the buttons on Eddie’s shirt.

“I would’ve given you everything when we were kids. I fucking worshipped you. Were you that fucking dumb?”

“Pretty much.” In frustration, Richie just rips off the top and the sound of tearing fabric echoes through the kitchen. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“You’re gonna pay for that shirt.”

“Is that all I am to you? A sugar daddy?”

“Don’t ever—” Eddie bites his bottom lip and nearly draws blood. “—say that to me again.”

Richie chuckles. “Yeah, okay.”

“Fuck me over the counter and I’ll put it on your tab.”

Richie’s dick shoots up at a couple parts of that sentence, if he’s being honest. The first being, you know, the obvious part. The second being the implications of him running up a _tab_ for desecrated clothing items. That part’s pretty fucking exciting, too.

Eddie’s hopping up onto the countertop.

“You’re not at all bothered by the fact that we prepare food on that?”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Richie, just shut up.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’m losing my mind. I’m so wildly horny for you that I’m asking you to fuck me in the kitchen and you want to stop to _remind me_ about how unhygienic that is?”

“Kind of working against my own interests, there.”

“Yeah, I’d fucking say so!”

Eddie’s grabbing him and pulling him towards him.

“I don’t keep lube in the kitchen,” Richie remembers soon while his lips are busy working against Eddie’s mouth again.

“I’ll give you twenty seconds.”

“You’re mean.”

“Nineteen. Eighteen.”

Richie’s running back down the hall with his ass out. He fumbles around in his nightstand and is sprinting back, dick flying in the wind.

“Okay, I got—like, three different kinds and a fucking charcuterie board of condoms, so—”

“If you put flavored lube on your dick I’m leaving.”

“Ookay, just the one kind of lube, then.”

Eddie grabs the bottle and stares at it, for a minute.

Richie freezes as he watches him.

“I just remembered you’ve never done this before.”

Eddie winces, and just like that, the façade of confidence is gone.

“Do you want me to finger you?” Richie can barely get it out without combusting on the spot.

“I would—yes, I—I want you to—yes, I want that.” Eddie nods.

“Eds, we don’t even have to—I mean, we can take it slow, you know, we can do, like, other stuff, or—”

“Do you _not_ want to finger me?”

“No, I do,” he says immediately.

“Okay, that’s just super confusing, because I just told you point-blank that I want you to finger me and then bend me over and fuck me and you’re still arguing with me instead of doing that.”

Richie’s slathering lube on his hand without a moment’s hesitation. He grabs Eddie’s hip and slides him off the counter and turns him around, mumbling obscenities about how _“I’ll show you a fuckin’ fingering, you motherf—”_ and Eddie’s laughing a little as Richie bends him over.

He’s not laughing about five seconds later.

Because, see, now Richie’s got a chip on his shoulder, and he _knows_ where the fucking prostate is.

Richie mouths down the Eddie’s spine as he moans, and keens around Richie’s fingers. Mouths at where the scar is, because it’s something sacred.

“You okay?” comes softer.

Eddie nods against the marble. “Y-yeah, just…keep…Richie, please…”

“Yeah. Yeah. I know. I got you.”

“You— _oh, God—_ absolute son of a bitch. You were packing an nine-inch cock and fucking magic fingers and made me wait—twenty-seven— _fuck!_ —years—”

“Keep ‘em waiting, that’s what I say.”

“I hate you. I hate you so much. I hate you. I ha—I _love_ you. I love you—Oh, _god,_ Richie, I love you—”

But it feels like he might only be saying that because Richie’s three fingers-deep and hitting his prostate repeatedly.

He pulls out because Eddie has now devolved into incoherent whining and his dick is harder than a diamond and is dripping pre-cum onto the tile floor and Richie’s gonna fucking go insane.

Richie moves to get in position but Eddie’s reaching behind him and grabbing for his wrist.

“I don’t w—wait. I changed my mind.”

Richie freezes and his eyes go a little haywire. He starts to step away but Eddie’s still gripping his wrist.

“No, I just—wanna see you.”

“Oh,” Richie breathes. “Uh…okay. Right. I’ll…yeah, I’ll make it work.”

Eddie bites his lip and pushes himself up from the counter a bit.

“Should we…uh…”

“How do you feel about the floor?”

“I’m not…sure…”

“You have better knees than me, though, so you might have to be on top.”

“Uh…”

“Or…not. Because it’s your first time. And I’m a gentleman, and not an asshole. So…”

“Richie, if your dick’s not in me in thirty seconds…”

“I know, I know, just…let me think.”

“The…the table. Let’s do it on the table.”

“You have a fetish for cold, hard, uncomfortable eating surfaces, has anyone ever told you tha—"

 _“Richie!_ I swear to God!”

“Right. Sorry. Table.”

Eddie’s grabbing him and they’re _hustling_ to the table. Eddie hops onto the edge. Richie’s fumbling on a condom. Eddie grabs him by the arms and pulls him in so they’re flush together. Richie grabs him by the neck and seals his mouth over Eddie’s. He takes a second to line himself up before he’s pushing in and can feel the wetness gathering in Eddie’s eyes as it brushes against his cheeks.

For as talkative as the lead-up was, you could hear a deer shit in the woods now. Richie’s mouth won’t leave Eddie’s. He climbs over him as he buries himself, leaning them both down over the table so Eddie’s flat on his back and Richie’s braced above him.

He’s going to leave _such_ a _stellar_ fucking review on Ikea.

His hands trail down Eddie’s sides to grab at his thighs, angling them up so Richie can start to move slow and Eddie can _feel it_ like he needs him to. Eddie’s hands paw at his face and neck, hot and rough and grounding. Richie leans down; kisses the line of the scar on his chest, from the front this time, and seals the wound with his mouth.

Eddie finally starts tugging at his threads of hair and Richie takes that to mean _go faster._ He’s fucking into him proper, body gradually collapsing into Eddie’s, face buried in his neck, fucking him practically _into_ the table as Eddie’s sounds come out broken and choked-out, and completely encouraging. Richie’s body is so flush with Eddie’s, and he presses it even closer, so that it’s impossible to feel where he stops and Eddie begins even if he fucking wanted to.

Richie doesn’t ever pull out fully. He doesn’t think he’d have the willpower. His thrusts are shallow and hard and quick. Eddie rakes his nails down Richie’s arms and he begs for _“more”_ and _“harder”,_ which is impossible and maybe he knows that but Richie likes that he wants it anyway.

Eddie’s moans mount to whines before he comes. Three long sounds—almost groans—from the pit of him, that sound obscene, and solidify in Richie’s mind that Eddie was made for nothing else but to be fucked, and fucked, and fucked by him, every second of every day, and well.

_“Aahhhh—ohhgo—ohRi—”_

So. Breakfast at that table the next morning is. Uh. Super fucking awkward.

Soft clangs of spoons against the bottom of cereal bowls is. Like. The _only_ sound. Richie even hesitates before he bites down on the Froot Loops, because it’s amplified so much in the searing fucking silence that it sounds like a California earthquake.

“We’re out of peanut butter,” Eddie says, not looking at him.

“Oh.”

“Need to go grocery shopping today.”

“’Kay.”

Smooth, contemporary jazz plays through the shitty speakers of the Whole Foods as Richie and Eddie push the cart down the aisle.

Eddie points to the cans of black beans from where he’s staring down at his list and Richie grabs them and puts them in the cart.

Richie raps his fingers against the bar of the shopping cart to the music, and his eyes catch on another can on a shelf, and he picks it up and looks at it.

“D’you know what hominy is?”

Eddie makes some noise of acknowledgement in the back of his throat that doesn’t really answer the question.

“H-hey—uh, Richie?” The voice comes from in front of them, and down the aisle. Richie looks up.

_Shit. Fuck. Shit-ass-fuck._

“Hey! Uh…you!”

“Jason. You…do you remember me?” The man’s got a smile and eyes shining with all the markings of, _“I’m a fucking idiot who can’t read the fucking room or understand how incredibly fucking mortifyingly inappropriate this is”._

Eddie’s eyes shoot up from the list and start glancing between the two of them. Richie feels it when it happens.

“You know. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I do.”

“New Year’s Party, back in…what year was it? 2016? Christina introduced us.”

“No. Yep. I…she sure did. Hey, uh, listen—”

“This is so crazy; I just saw you on Seth Meyers last night! You were great. And I was just thinking about you, and that night we—”

“Aw, thanks, hey, we’ve really, actually, gotta get going—”

“Oh, no,” Eddie speaks up with the fucking _worst_ smirk decorating his face. “No, we don’t. We’re great on time.”

 _Finally,_ Jason has the decency to look embarrassed.

“Oh, is—” his eyes are wide as he recognizes that Eddie’s even standing there. “Is this—oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were—”

“Oh, no, man, don’t worry about it—”

“That you were here with your partner, I never would’ve—”

“No! No—” he’s saying, at the same time Eddie’s saying it, too.

“We’re not—”

“He’s not—”

“Well—”

“No, go on.” Eddie’s lifting his eyebrows at him. “Finish your sentence.”

Richie’s jaw is on the floor and it’s stuck there.

Jason is slowly backing away.

“I’m just gonna…” he gestures behind him. “It was nice seeing you, Richie. And, uh, nice meeting you.”

“You too.” Eddie waves him off with a tight-ass smile.

Then, when Jason’s gone, they’re staring at each other and Richie thinks it’s very not fair that Eddie looks as smug as he does.

“Eddie—”

“Well, he seems nice.”

“That’s not fair.”

“What?” Eddie shrugs, nonchalant as a motherfucker and not even looking at him, and starts pushing the cart again. “He seems nice.”

“Don’t do that, come on.”

Eddie goes quiet for a beat.

“Canola oil.”

Richie starts to say something but stops himself to turn around and grab it from the shelf.

“Shouldn’t we talk?” he asks as they walk.

Eddie screws his lips up, considering it.

“I need some time to think.”

Richie lets out a frustrated sigh. “I feel like we should talk about it, though. I _want_ to talk about it. Eds—”

“I don’t want to say something before I know what it is I wanna say, Richie.”

“So let’s work through it, let’s—”

“I don’t even have anything really to say to you right now.”

“You don’t have anything to say to me?” But that’s a little loud, and they just passed by a family of three, so Richie lowers his voice. “You don’t have anything to say to me—Eddie—we had fucking _mind-blowing_ sex last night and you’re _shrugging_ about it?”

“No, I know, it just—it is what it is right now, you know? I don’t have an opinion about it.”

“I have an opinion about it! I have lots of opinions about it! I’m bursting at the fucking seams with opinions about it!”

“Richie—”

“I have questions, too! _Lots_ of those. When can we do it again, is, like, maybe the _first_ one—”

“I don’t really know that we should,” Eddie shrugs again, lightly.

“Are you _nuts?”_ Richie can’t help how loud that one gets. “I came so hard I think I traveled, like, three seconds back in time!”

Eddie huffs out a laugh.

“Well,” he starts, teasing. “Maybe _Jason_ can help you with that.”

Richie stops walking with the cart and it’s like Eddie doesn’t notice.

 _“Hey,”_ he bites. Then he starts following again as Eddie turns the corner down the next aisle, unfazed. “Hey, don’t fucking do that. Eddie, that is so fucking—”

“I’m not—” Eddie turns, sighs, and looks at up at him, more genuinely this time. “I’m really not trying to be an asshole, Richie, I’m…I’m kind of serious. I don’t…I don’t know that this… _we’re_ …the best idea.”

Richie grabs his wrist before it reaches for the dumbass list again, forcing Eddie to keep looking at him.

“I told you I love you last night and I meant it.”

“I did too.”

 _“You did t—_ well, that’s it, then!”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes it—” Richie groans with his whole body.

“Can you please just wait to have this conversation until we get home? Then at least I get the car ride to…collect my thoughts.”

“Fine.” But Richie’s not happy about it.

The car ride is silent and Eddie stares at his hands in the passenger seat while Richie stares out the window. Unloading the groceries from the trunk is silent. Walking in the house is silent. Putting the groceries on the counter is…yeah, you get it.

When they finish, Eddie looks at him before leaving to go to his room in a way that means that Richie should follow.

When Richie walks in, Eddie’s sitting on the bed. Carefully, Richie approaches, and sits.

_“’And my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.’”_

Richie’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Kerouac.”

“Oh.”

Eddie sits in more silence and seems terrible comfortable with it, tapping his foot lightly against the carpet as he won’t look at Richie.

Richie swallows. “You said something the other day.”

“What was it?”

“You said…well, you were drunk, but…you said…you said you thought I’m a better person than you.”

Eddie frowns. “Well, you are.”

“What the fuck?” Richie whispers in incredulity.

“Come on, you…you are. I’m…Richie, I’m…I don’t think we should keep…doing, whatever it is we’re doing.”

“What the fuck—why? Because you think I’m Mother fuckin’ Theresa?”

“No, but, I’m not…I don’t think I can be…I don’t think I’m good, for you.”

“Eddie, you’ve really lost me here—”

“I’m not, like…a complete…person.”

Richie can’t move.

_“Eddie—”_

“Look, my marriage was doomed from the start, okay, it was a joke. Everyone saw it, a-and I know that now. But that’s because I had no _fucking idea_ who I was—I mean, none. I had no sense of self, Richie, and I still…I still don’t. I don’t…I don’t feel…”

Eddie breathes—trying so hard to breathe evenly—to keep it all together.

“You’ve always known who you are. Every fucking thing you ever did, since we were kids, you…you might not have been able to admit it to yourself or anybody else, but you still _knew_. And you’re kind, and smart, and brave, and funny, and maybe—” Eddie inhales sharp. “Maybe you love me in this incredibly loyal way that I don’t deserve and can’t really figure out, but I don’t…I’m not…that. I’m not whatever it is you need me to be. I’m not brave, I’m not even very interesting—I only figured out I was gay, like, a year ago—I’m fucking selfish when I’m scared and I lose…I lose _all_ sense of who I am when I get overwhelmed and shit’s too much. I try so fucking hard not to do that and it’s terrifying as shit, not having a concrete identity, something about yourself to hold onto, but it’s what I am. In the end, I’m a coward who runs away from his own fucking life. But I swear to God, I won’t…I will _not_ invite you to that shitshow. I won’t do that to you. I won’t make you—"

Richie is reaching with both hands for the hem of Eddie’s shirt.

“What are you—” Eddie freezes in confusion.

“Turn towards me.”

He does, even if he doesn’t know why.

Richie pulls up over Eddie’s head as Eddie lifts his arms up. He tosses the shirt to his right—it hits a dresser and falls to the floor.

Eddie maybe gets it now, because he’s starting to look upset, and won’t look at him.

Richie brings his legs up and sits cross-legged on the bed to face him. He reaches a hand out. He runs it reverently along the scar.

He doesn’t say anything for a minute. Tears start to fall from Eddie’s eyes as he wallows a bit in shame.

“That’s all bullshit. So.” Richie says. “What else you got?”

“Rich— _Richie,”_

“I watched you flatline. _Asshole._ ” Richie bites. _“Twice._ Do you know what I thought, when that happened? Both times, it was, _‘Jesus Christ, he’s gone, because he traded his life for_ me.’” His throat feels thick and his voice breaks, which is good, because he wants Eddie to hear that. _“’And I don’t deserve it.”_

Eddie’s just shaking his head.

“I sat in that hospital room and I _hated_ you for being so brave, because if you had been anybody else, you’d be alive, and I’d be dead, and that would be _better.”_

“Stop—”

_“No.”_

“I can’t—Why’re you—”

“I love you. And you died for me. Like, twice. Who does that?”

Eddie can’t laugh but he can smile a little, and that’s good enough.

“You’re so hot. You came into my house and you rearranged all the dishes in my cabinets and you stuck little labels on my Tupperware, and you divorced your bitch wife and you read Kerouac and you took my cock and you came all over our kitchen table. I think if you don’t agree to keep having sex with me for the rest of my life I’ll die.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“It’s not. Like, what would even be the point? Life would be so fucking depressing.”

Eddie’s bottom lip shakes but his eyes tell a different story. They’re happy, with a wet sheen, and are so full of life.

“I really love you.”

“Say that again.”

“I _really_ love you.”

Richie leans forward, and against his lips: “Again.”

“I really—”

They kiss. And they laugh. And they have sex in the bed. And when it’s over, they lay on their backs, looking up at the ceiling.

_“I think it looks ugly. And dumb. And Greta ruined it.”_

_“Nah, Eds, I think it’s so cool!” Richie holds Eddie’s cast in his two hands. “Makes you look like a badass.”_

_“You’re dumb. It’s a cast that says_ ‘LOSER’ _on it.”_

_Richie frowns. He grabs a marker off Eddie’s desk._

_He fixes it._

_“You’re so…dumb.” Eddie says again at the sight._

_“Maybe Greta doesn’t know, but we all know you got it fighting that clown.”_

_Eddie shakes his head._

_“I fell down a story and landed on a fucking table. That’s what broke my arm. Not the clown.”_

_“Doesn’t matter how you got it. You stared that clown right in the eyes. That’s so fucking cool. I don’t know that I coulda done that.”_

_Eddie makes a “pssh” sound. “You could’ve.”_

_“Nah,” Richie shakes his head. “I’m not that cool.”_

_Eddie smiles, and looks down at the cast._

Richie fixes everything, _he thinks._

**Author's Note:**

> stream folklore wear a mask donate BLM
> 
> I am rachelamberish on tumblr. Come talk to me!


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